Western Climate and Water

Galina Guentchev, Imtiaz Rangwala, and Kelly Mahoney
on their way to Colorado’s Fraser Experimental Forest.
Photo by Robin Webb, NOAA.

It’s hard enough to figure out, in a too-short, two-year fellowship, how precipitation in the
Colorado River Basin has varied historically, and how that variability may change with
future warming. But ESRL postdoctoral researcher Galina Guentchev wants to push her
research work even further.

“I want to do a better job relating my results to the needs of the people who are sponsoring
my research, the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
(USBR) ,” Guentchev said. “I would like to be able to tell them what this variability
means in terms of streamflow, and put it into a hydrological model.”

Guentchev is one of four ESRL postdocs working on western water and climate issues this
year, with support from NOAA’s Climate Program Office, USBR, SNWA, and the National
Research Council.

Joe Barsugli (Physical Sciences Division) organized a mid-November “mini-workshop”
for the four postdocs, and he invited water management professionals with the Bureau
of Reclamation and other agencies, to attend and help the young researchers refine their
research plans.

Kelly Mahoney described her goal to better understand how climate change will affect extreme
precipitation events and therefore dam operations in the West. And Stephanie McAfee
discussed how she plans to use tree-ring data and physiological plant models to investigate
what appears to be accelerating tree mortality across the West. “We will be asking if today’s
events really are unique or unprecedented, or if they are widescale and jarring, but also standard,”
McAfee said.

Kristen Averyt, deputy director of NOAA/University of Colorado Western Water Assessment,
praised the young scientists for tackling societal challenges in their research. “It’s all about
making science useful and getting it into the hands of people who are making decisions.”

“This is a great lesson for NOAA, as it struggles to define the role of research in a national climate
service,” added ESRL’s Robin Webb (Physical Sciences Division).

Other ESRL postdocs (and advisors):

Mimi Hughes (Marty Ralph) is working on connections between atmospheric rivers, orographic
precipitation, and climate variability.

Sara Lance (Graham Feingold) is making airborne measurements of cloud microphysical
properties and the aerosol Indirect effect in the springtime lower Arctic troposphere.

Stephanie Leroux (George Kiladis) is working on interseasonal variability of tropical convection.